Bittersweet Cookies
by PinkCottonCandyCane
Summary: I remember the laughter and cookie dough on the tip of my nose, and I remember throwing small handfulls of chocolate chips at eachother just because we were happy. Baking cookies was a bonding exercise for us, I've realized that over the years. Life itself is a bittersweet void. EdxOc (Full summary inside & other pairings) Rating Will Go Up


**Please, please give this story a chance! It will have Royai and Almei and Lingfan and all that good stuff; I might even throw in some WinryxOc for Winry's sake.**  
**Basically, it's going to tell the story of teenage Grace Carlton, who has had her fair share of life's hell-hole. This first chapter, and probably the first quater of the second chapter, won't feature the FMA characters that we all know and love (maybe a bit more than someone should love an animated character).**  
**This story may or may not stay in Grace's point of view. It really depends on which direction this thing goes.**  
**Each chapter will have a small strip of song lyrics, see an example below. Each chapter will show the quote below. I have no idea why it has to be that quote, but my mind refuses to let me say otherwise. Hope you enjoy the chapter! PLEASE GIVE THE STORY A SHOT! .3.**  
**Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. It should be pretty obvious if I'm writing fanfiction, people.**

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_**Chapter One: Cookies**_

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**_"In a World That Spins So Fast, Nothing Ever Seems to Last"_**

_Maybe it's a dream,_  
_Maybe nothing else is real,_  
_But it wouldn't mean a thing if I told you how I feel_  
_- Cristina Vee, 'Bad Apple!'_

Everyone has their begining. Or, in some cases, their breaking point. The point when you've given so much and you feel like you can't give anymore. You're tired of sacrificing everything when everyone else gives nothing in return.

I've seen people reach their limits. I've seen them break down. I've seen death itself in the headlights. I've seen death happen before my eyes.

But seeing people die isn't my most vague memory.

It's chocolate chip cookies.

No, I'm not joking. Chocolate chip cookies are my first memory, at least the first I can remember off the top of my head. I've always loved chocolate chip cookies. The way they taste, the very thought. The smell. My sister, Kate, used to let me assist her in the kitchen while making them.

I remember the laughter and cookie dough on the tip of my nose, and I remember throwing small handfulls of chocolate chips at eachother just because we were happy. Baking cookies was a bonding excercise for us, I've realized that over the years. We'd do it when Mom and Dad were pondering over the nursery in the next room.

That's my second memory. Decorating the nursery. Splattering ourselves with periwinkle paint, and dipping our hands in white, which we used for the trim. I remember pressing our hands against the periwinkle and marking our place as a family. Those handprints stayed there for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I find myself wondering if they're still there or not.

Mom was pregnant with our younger sibling. And we didn't know what gender the baby would be, so we just decided to paint the room periwinkle. It's not a girly color, or a boyish color for that matter. One day Mom just came out and said it,"Periwinkle is not a sexist color." At the time, I had no idea what 'sexist' meant. Or what 'sex' meant, for that matter. Now that I look back on it, what she said actually makes me give a faint laugh.

We were one of those 'picture perfect' families.

Everything seemed so perfect at the time. The stars seemed aligned. The world was in perfect orbit.

I'd never been so wrong.

A mere three weeks before Mom's due date, she became ill. People never came up with a name for it, not that I know of. If they did, it must be scientist-exclusive. But whenever someone got it, they'd call them a 'Stiff'. This was because it usually only infected small children and, to our horror, pregnant women. The disease claimed millions of infants and soon-to-be mothers.

Mom was one of them. She had a miscarriage. The baby had just opened it's eyes before it died. I believe the eye color was a deep sapphire, like Dad's. The baby was taken from the room too quickly for me to get a good look.

Mom cried for the last moments of her life.

My next memory is of me asking if we could still name the baby, despite the death. Mom started to laugh, and so did the rest of us. She pulled Kate and I into her arms, laughing with us as Dad held her hand and chuckled. We all had tear brimmed eyes. In that moment, we could all see us pulling through. We could see a future for ourselves where everything turned out okay. Where we would move on and still be happy.

And then a choking noise replaced laughter.

Mom choked on her own blood.

The image of blood dribbling from the corner of her lips is forever seared into my mind.

The funeral was horrible. I cried, screamed at the top of my lungs along with Kate. We wailed, along with our other overly-attached family members.

Kate and I secretly named the baby Johnny, and we carved it into the back of the make-shift gravestone. Johnny Carlton- 1906. Down below, I made sure Kate carved one last thing. The only thing that could really be used to describe the baby.

Where most tombstones simply read 'Loving Father' or 'Grandfather to All,' Johnny's read something that still makes me tear up with the smallest of smiles.

_Johnny Cartlon_  
_1906_  
_Periwinkle Is Not A Sexist Color_

Life went on. Not the way it should have, though. Things never returned to normal. And overtime, we all lost hope that it ever would.

Kate never stopped trying to keep me happy, never stopped trying to give me the life that every child should have.

Dad became distant, depressed. It was so hard to talk to him during those first months, when he'd only answer with 'uh-uh' or 'mhm-m' or just plain 'mhm'. So, after a while, I just quit talking to him. I made sure to tell him that I loved him each day, though. But nothing more than that. It was too painful for me to talk to him. It made me feel as though I was screaming at the top of my lungs in a room full of people, but no one could hear me.

Dad died eleven months after Mom passed. On their anniversary. We found him curled up in his bed cluthing a photo of Mom.

Kate turned seventeen three weeks later. We moved out of that haunted house of sorts and moved into an apartment, in Central of all places. She didn't go to college. She decided to get a job as a military receptionist at Central Command. She could have done so many things with her life, but she decided to become a receptionist because it was convienient and so she could care for me.

That brings me to my next memory, then. The night of November 11, 1910.

It was bitter cold, although Central was known for it's year-long warm climate. I breathed out, and a puff of mist formed a few inches from my face. I was wrapped in a scarf, my pockets shoved deeply into my coat's pockets.

Kate walked alongside me, arms dangling by her sides as she led us home. Her shoulder-length, chestnut hair swayed with her. She had my father's eyes, those deep blues that shone like jewels.

Damn military officials. It was their fault we were out that late. We had to go to that stupid holiday party. I could still taste the mashed potatoes and gravy and the whole buffet. Military officials made it their own personal goal to send their guests home in awe. But I only felt envy and wrath burning my core. They practically shoved it in our faces.

I heard a shuffle in an alley as we walked past. For a faint moment, I saw a luminous red light. I still remember seeing it. The way it looked so eerie, like a candle's flame during a storm. We stopped momentarily infront of a shop window, staring in at all of the wooden crafts as a toy train rounded it's track. I guess it's just one of those things you do when you want something so badly but know that you can't have it.

That was when I heard that shuffling again. And that time, I know Kate heard it because she grabbed my arm and began pulling me down the sidewalk. We darted past another alley in seconds.

I remember hitting the cold ground. It was a stinging pain against my cheek. I looked up to see Kate standing with horror plastered on her face. I can remember seeing a blade catch the moonlight before plunging itself into Kate's form, slicing her from her shoulder to her other hip. The blood rained down, dotting my face with crimson.

I saw a foot come down.

And then, my memory is darkness.

I woke up in an operating-room of sorts. I remember cringing back from the blinding light. It hurt my eyes to even chance looking around for minutes on end.

My eyes eventually focused on a small metal plate. I didn't care that there were medical instruments on the thing, all I knew was that I was in a strange place and I had no recognition of how I had gotten there. I was lost, helpless, terrified eleven year old. How could I not have been freaked out?

I'd grabbed the plate, scattering the tools everywhere in the process, and held it up to my face. Everything seemed right. Clean, lightly tanned skin. Eyes the color of cinnamon.

But there were noticable changes.

My once long, blond hair that fell to my waist had been cropped extremely short, boy-cut. I could see the tears welling in my eyes and I had to put the plate down. My outfit had been replaced by a thin, tan gown with short sleves. The dress itself came to knees.

I stood on shaky legs to find that I had trouble balancing my weight. I've always been underweight. The experience was foreign to me. I stumbled across the cold floor. I was barefoot and I slid rather easily across the tile. I held onto the metal doors for support, trying to pull myself up from gravity itself.

I pushed through the door and fell onto the tile in the hallway. I remember having to push myself off of the floor.

People in white lab coats had come to a screeching stop before me, staring at me in both shock and awe. One of them began to bark orders, and within seconds I saw a hideous old man push through to the front of the gathering crowd. His eyes were hidden beneath glasses. He held a sickening smile, revealing a gold tooth.

He held out what looked like a gun to me at the time, but now that I know what a gun looks like, it was actually a tranquilizer gun. Still technically a gun. I can remember the cold feeling that rushed over me in seconds. I thought I was going to die. Now that I think about it, it might have been better that way.

Just to get it over with. What was I waiting for, anyways?

I don't really remember what it felt like when the dart pierced my skin, but I remember feeling the smallest prick before my memories become darkness again. Considering my age and my weight and all that good stuff, I probably passed out the second it touched me.

When I woke up, I was in a, uh, cage. A metal cage. Like what an animal would be in. I guess I'd been fairly bad in their minds. It never occured to me that I might have been the animal until later.

I hear croaks of frogs, the squeaks of mice, the growls of who knows what, a lion maybe. And then I heard a rather unpleasant voice; it honestly reminded me of my grade school teacher's witch impersonation.

"Well, look who's finally awake," They said. I had drowsy looked up to find a small group of people standing outside of my 'holding cell.'

One was the doctor from before, three were other scientists I suppose, and three were... I can't say I'm too sure.

They were dressed in the strangest clothing. It was made from some peculiar, brownish-reddish tinted fabric and it had red lines in different places on each of them. I noticed an incredibly odd symbol placed in a random place on each of their bodies. The woman's was placed on her upper sternum, the teenager's was placed on his upper thigh, and the obese man had the symbol planted on his lolling tongue.

The symbol itself looked like something an emotionally depressed person would paint during a moment of absolute sorrow and solitude. Who else would come up with such a strange tattoo? A small set of strange triangular symbols, a snake eating it's tail circling the small set, and then a pair of wings a few centimeters above it.

It was the oddest, yet beautiful, things I'd ever seen. I've always found an enthralling curiosity in the weirdest things. It was just one of those small things in life that caught my eye.

I can't imagine how foolish I looked, staring up at them with my innocent, starstruck gaze.

_"Your worthless. Make yourself worth it."_

I heard an eerie voice say. It seemed like it was over me, but then again, I didn't know what was going on at the time.

It was a second later that the words were seared into my mind, permenantly perhaps. Forever forged with my memory by madness and agony itself.

And now, we come to the moment of my magnificent breaking point.

The pain had started in my finger tips and then it quaked through my bones. It felt as though I was being ripped apart, like a million cuts of a dagger. I'd only cut myself once before with a kitchen knife, on accident when chopping vegetables. This felt worse than a burn, worse than a cut. I doubt I'll ever feel that kind of pain again, and I still hope that no one else will ever experience it.

I can still feel the moment when the 'change' occurred if I think of it.

It felt like stretching after a long nap. Like stretching out every muscle in my chest and my spine. Only way, way harder. And then the tension was released in a shower of blood and gore as something burst from my back.

And I swear I saw death itself. A white void had flickered before me, and so had a sickening grin.

I don't remember anything after that, so I guess I'd passed out.

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When I woke, I was in an abandoned alley. It was still biting cold. I was still wearing that hospital gown. I was still covered in my own blood.

I was in need of medical attention. Badly. But I was terrified beyond my comprehension. Especially when I saw my downfall.

Everyone has their begining, or their breaking point.

Mine was when I saw my sister's body crumpled on the cold, hard ground, bathed in pearly moonlight.

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**Sorry for any errors :P I don't know if it was anticlimatic to you guys or what... Please help me and leave a comment!**

**Ed: Heh, you could use the help.**


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